Homosexuality Struggles Mount in Mainline Churches
Renewal leaders within America's historic mainline churches say evangelicals must get invovled in church polity if they are to reclaim the majority's voice on the sexuality front.
Leading evangelicals within America’s historic mainline denominations met in Arlington, Virginia for the biannual Association for Church Renewal (ACR) gathering earlier this month.
According to the 20 participants, mainline churches are struggling on the sexuality front and will continue to do so unless evangelicals grab key leadership positions and get actively involved in the church’s polity.
“We realized at the gathering that we are all struggling with the push on the sexuality issue,” said James Heidinger II, chairman of the ACR and president of the Good News network within the United Methodist Church (UMC).
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The UMC, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church USA, the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ (UCC) are all mainline denominations that have struggled in regards to the homosexuality issue for several decades.
Most of the denominations adopted statements banning the ordination of actively gay clergy and the blessing of homosexual unions. However, challenges are being made annually against such bans – although according to renewal leaders, the majority of the church remains in favor of those restrictions.
“Studies have shown time and time again that – at least in the UMC – almost 70 percent of Methodists define themselves as conservatives on moral and theological issues,” Heidinger explained.
In some churches, such as the UCC, the leadership adopted statements celebrating the homosexual lifestyle despite opposition in the grassroots.
“I’m afraid this pattern is continuing in many of the churches, where the bureaucracy does not really speak for the church but is often quoted as a source because there is no where else to go,” explained Heidinger.
Therefore, Heidinger said, the church needs to see the “emergence of a strong orthodox evangelical majority” that is willing to fight for the key issues facing the church today.
“We’ve always had this conservative presence, but they have not gotten involved in leadership,” said Heidinger. “We have been urging people in the church to get in the game and make their voices heard, rather than to just sit on the sidelines and watch the game play out.”
“We want to activate evangelicals who are out there to apply for the leadership of the denominations and become members of the committees that can make a difference.”
Mark Chavez, the president of the Word Alone network of Lutheran churches, agreed that evangelicals must become more actively involved in church politics if they are to change the denominations' direction and path.
“The problem is that the people who are most active in our churches in terms of mission and evangelism don’t want to get involved in the politics,” explained Chavez. “So they tend not be even nominated for the leadership position.
“However, it would take a much higher political involvement from evangelical leaders if they want to make a difference and bring about a biblical reformation,” Chavez explained.
Heidinger agreed.
“Evangelicals have historically been more interested in local church ministry and they do that well, but it doesn’t make sense for us to leave the entire administration to people who are liberal,” said Heidinger. “So we have been urging these evangelicals to make the commitment, to give the time and energy, and to get involved at the national level.”
In the meantime, mainline denominations are continuing on a downward trend – both in membership and financial stability - according to the renewal leaders.
“I’ve not seen any evidence of [the mainline churches] bouncing back,” explained Chavez. “There are individual churches within each of those denominations that have been growing, but a couple of studies show that almost all of those churches are connected with renewal movement.”
Ultimately, if the church does not turn back from its “liberal” track, ELCA renewal members may form a “church within a church” to clearly unite the voice of the majority.
“We are on the verge of taking the first step of a new association of churches in the ELCA,” explained Chavez. “This association would essentially be a non-geographical synod, and would be one that gathers on the basis of a common confession of the Christian faith.”
The Word Alone network will consider forming the new association during its annual meeting in April.
